Finally finished my cave terrain!

[drayer]

    This past week I've been working on these pieces. I was inspired and followed a good bit of Bill Allen's video on cavern terrain (link at the end). Alot of people don't care for high walls, these are about 2 inches, but bent and molded to allow for ease of play.I should also mention I made these in mind of a later set I'm going to do that is multi level (a big battle that is going to play like a wargame). These were done however for one the first quests in the campaign I'm writing I figured they'd work as great tunnels for other thing too obviously.
    Cost of making these was:

• 8 oz of white glue
  
• 25 mini glue sticks
  
• 1 roll of toilet paper  
  
• Cardboard 4ft X 3ft
• Handful of decorative filler rocks
  
• Acrylic paints

    I started making the bases as the video had shown. Cutting the floor and hot gluing the walls, leaving a decent ledge on the outsides.
I then painted with pva glue and sprinkled some stones randomly. I initially felt this would be an adequate texture for the cave style I wanted.
After looking at them and not knowing how the texture was achieved on the video I decided to use toilet paper.


    This seemed to get more of what I wanted and the rocks underneath the paper created some nice craters,bumps and such.



    Once I was finished with those I did another layer on the walls tapering down to the floor. I sprinkled another coat of small rocks on and painted everything black.







       I then painted onto the texture brown followed by dark gray, light gray and brown again. I threw in some larger rocks as well, however looking at it now I'm either going to pull them out and patch, or texture and build them into columns or spires.






    In conclusion, I like how these came out, minus a few things I can still change. they have minor fitting issues because I didn't cut straight edges on all the entryways but that's not a huge issue and can be addressed if I decide to change the larger rocks. The walls I'm happy with yea they're a little bigger than most prefer, but the way I set my table works for it. Even from the very edge you can still see into it and move pieces freely. The wrinkles in the cardboard and warping with that also didn't go %100 I've wet the back ends of the larger pieces and have books on top of them now, I hoping that flattens them out a bit more.   
    Quite a bit there, I know, but let me know what you guys think! Also a link to the video

[deafnala]

OUTSTANDING! Your Cavern is a BEAUTIFUL & very practical creation...a SPLENDID  idea carried out in fine fashion. VERY WELL DONE!
I would love to see some in progress game photos. The miniatures complete the terrain & vise versa.

[skunkape]

I agree, very nicely done!

[sgtslag]

Beautifully done!... I think you took your inspiration video to a higher level (pun intended).  For what it is, it is quite lovely.  The rounded edges is actually a more fluid approach, suggesting to the viewer that these are underground river channels from the, hopefully, distant past.  Your work is superb, to be honest.

One point I will share is the color palette:  it is much darker than the majority of caverns I've been in, across the USA, but that is a minor nitpick.  The painting is actually quite good -- the texturing is fantastic, and any palette issues will likely never enter the players' collective minds -- they will be too blown away by the beauty of it all.

I envy the quality of your approach.  I built modular caverns where I place cavern wall pieces on top of a mottled mat, placing them end-to-end to form hallways and caverns.  It is far removed from your more realistic approach, but what I lost in realism, I made up for in modularity, and stow-ability when not in use.  Every time I see works like yours, I wince a little, , then I remember I don't have space to store pieces using your approach, and I relax.  

I do, however, very much enjoy seeing such works as yours!  Absolutely gorgeous pieces!    Phenomenal workmanship!  If you do decide to sell it off, when you are done with it, I suggest you advertise it on TheMiniaturesPage.com, as well as e-Bay.  You should have no issues turning it into cash, but shipping will be a challenge.  By the way, nice demonstration of old techniques applied in a new approach, to create new textures, and several new design approaches:  sloping away walls; rounded wall-floor junctions; and the swirling textures in the floors! Very informative, and inspiring work! Cheers!

[drayer]

Hey thanks for all the positive feedback!! I will put up some more pics with a couple miniatures and the deco once they're done.

I'll agree now looking at it in that thought, the scheme is a bit darker than I had planned. Actually just noticed now most of the deco I've been doing is lacking any brightness. To use that as a benefit, now that I've noticed I'm going to do all the minis in brighter colors, They should be printed by tonight or tomorrow. Hoping this Should make the pieces pop and play a bit more visable.

I wouldn't envy much it kinda built itself after I got going. The storage aspect would have been decent to consider, for myself they just have to fit in a tote. Maybe if someone else was attempting this I would suggest making the pieces in a way they could sit inside each other, a couple of these do, but not perfectly.

Thank you again for all the praise, I did want these to look as realistic as I could and I was also thinking (Only after it started to form on it's own) that it looked like an old underground water channel. Do you still have those sets you made or post pics of them? I kind of want to do a 2.5 d version of this with the same texture approach at some point.

I wasn't aware there was a market for home-made terrain and such, I'll have to check that out! Wouldn't mind doing a contest or something at some point for some pieces on here.

Anyway, I'll be going to work on the final deco pieces, miniatures and hopefully start my next scenario project soon. Also if anyone has any suggestions outside of Barrels, carts and tools for some things you'd see in a mine please let me know I'm looking for any ideas for the next project. As I said it's multi level so anything you can think of that would look cool I'd appreciate. It's worked by mostly skeletal miners brought to life with the souls of the damned, kept in check by undead minotuars.

One last time thank you all again for the comments!

[voodoo]

Looks great! I have small modular pieces, but I also have a whack of larger pieces as well. (I have space to store them.) really like what you've done here.